In the spirit of examining developing technology, I examine how exactly modern-day stores are tracking us to explore the fine line between technology simplifying and exploiting the lives of consumers.
It’s no surprise that computers have cookies. With digital footprints essentially impossible to erase, everything we search for has a way of coming back to us. From pesky advertisements to things we decided to take out of our shopping carts to suspicious Amazon suggestions, it’s clear that our browsing history is being tracked and used suggestively. And to tell the truth, this occurrence is something that many in this day and age have come to accept as perfectly normal. However, a concept that many are still opposed to is how we are tracked in the physical world. With CCTV cameras making Big Brother a plausible concept, it’s easier than ever to track people and identify crime. These technologies also have a more invasive and less helpful ability, however, when they are used to track us to predict and influence our shopping choices.
In a time and civilization as advanced as ours, privacy has become a dated concept. But just how deeply are we being watched? And does consent matter? (If you ask Mark Zuckerberg, the answer is a resounding no.) It’s no surprise that money is the motivating factor for most corporations (some non-profits excluded), but just how far will companies go to sell products? To expand sales, companies now turn to technology to keep up with and at times manipulate their clientele.
On the less invasive side of technology assisting sales, it’s been demonstrated that AI-powered systems could be used to predict when inventory is running low. At the same time, robotic assistance could be used to effectively and rapidly transport items in stores. However, the main focus on technology and shopping is targeted at influencing shoppers and altering their shopping experience. For example, facial recognition software for payments is one futuristic advancement that goes beyond touch pay and self-checkouts to truly advance the shopping experience. The idea of self-serving stores where the entire shopping and checking out process is done individually may not be so futuristic after all as shopping technologies rapidly advance. And for those worried about theft, a combination of facial recognition and device scanning could be able to automatically charge customers as they leave the location, rendering shoplifting fruitless.
Laws about both the legality and ethicality of tracking consumers are constantly in review as different sides of the debate seek to rectify what they perceive to be acceptable levels of tracking. However, the bottom line remains that consumers are being tracked far more than they might be aware of. As seemingly a benign act as getting on a store’s wifi can open consumers up to having their personal information scanned and processed for companies to best determine how to encourage customer spending. Smartphone pings, cameras, and facial recognition all now make it virtually impossible to not be recognized while shopping, creating digital profiles of consumers that allows for manipulation when it comes to marketing consumer goods and targeting potential clients.
Technology is reimagining the shopping experience, whether for better or worse. The personalization and customization that accompanies self-serving shopping under digital surveillance can offer targeted coupons for customers that might assist in the shopping experience (best case) or lead to more unnecessary buying (worst case). However, not all people are comfortable with the extent of the digital profiles being made about them, with such tracking making it far easier to both meet customer needs but once again encourage extra spending. This begs a question that must be answered on an individual basis, but at the same time is rather pointless since there is little we can do to escape the modern tech overhaul: is how technology simplifies our lives worth the privacy we lose both with and without consent?
Technology is certainly making modern-day shopping easier and faster than ever before. We now have a vast variety of shopping experiences at our fingertips that allows for many useful things such as ordering ahead, skipping lines, comparing prices, searching for deals, and checking out instantly both in stores and online. However, it is also apparent that the ease and customization that accompanies the modern shopping experience is not without sacrifice. To obtain these shopping perks, people are sacrificing their privacy, as digital shopping creates shopper profiles that make influencing individual shopping habits as easy as implementing the right algorithm. The bottom line? Buyers beware. Understand the influences behind your shopping decisions.